Stars and Saturn Valley
by asterika
Summary: With not much time left before the final struggle, Ness and Paula take turns with all the things left unsaid.


From the rooftop, Ness could just hear the distant trickle of the falls. He checked his watch - 1:30.

It wasn't particularly difficult to find a spot to sit there, even with the oddly smooth surface of the tiling. Sure, the roof was precariously inclined, and his fingers were getting numb from being outside for hours in the chilly early-morning breeze, but how much longer did he have to enjoy these simple pleasures?

The doctor had warned them explicitly of a point of no return after stepping into the newly constructed Phase Distorter. There was always a certain level of volatility to be expected with the Andonuts' technology; the Sky Runner Jeff used to travel halfway across the continent was still floating around in bits off the coast of Summers, and Ness couldn't count how many times he and the rest of the group had nearly been cooked by one of Jeff's makeshift explosives. But something was different. The doctor wouldn't meet any of their eyes, and his hands shook ever so slightly when he took the piece of meteorite from Ness. There was something he wasn't telling them.

Space and time, the doctor had insisted. They were in so deep.

And Ness was leading the four of them into the complete unknown. They all had families, friends, people to come back to. But what if they didn't get to? All because of him?

Ness wiped a tear of frustration from his eyes. At least no one was awake to view this showcase of weakness…

"Hey."

Paula emerged from the ladder leading down into the rooms, wearing a small smile.

"Oh, hi." Ness felt the familiar swooping sensation in his stomach again.

Sitting down next to him, she unfurled a blanket, taking great care to cover both of them equally.

"I thought you'd all be asleep," Ness muttered.

"The others – probably really tired. Maybe I would be, but I woke up in the middle of the night and you weren't in the room, so I started to worry. You shouldn't go running off so much!"

"I just needed some time. To think."

She turned to face him, her eyes studying his face. Grazing his cheek with the tip of her index finger, Paula brushed a stray tear away. Ness froze.

"What's wrong? And don't try and tell me nothing."

A laugh bubbled out of him. He wiped at his nose.

"Well, let's see," Ness rumbled, with the air of a game show host announcing a correct answer. "We're literally going 'where no man has gone before', Jeff's slimeball of a dad is acting more suspicious than he already does, and the best part? I get to be the one to bring all of you down with me!"

He smacked an open palm against the surface of the rooftop, the bang reverberating in the quietness of the night. It did nothing to relieve the tight feeling in his chest.

Paula huffed exasperatedly, and snatched up his hand.

They'd done this before. In Threed Cemetery, under Stonehenge Base, in the Lost Underworld, every night she thrashed about in her nightmares. But this time was different – her grip was demanding, aggressive even. Her fingers were tightly clasped around his, their hands indistinguishable.

"Okay, Captain Kirk, listen to me." Paula said, her voice strong and brisk. "You have to believe it'll be alright. Not because you know for sure, but because it has to be. If you think about it any other way, you're going to crumble. We've taken everything a step at a time so far, this'll be no different. And it'll stay like that until the very end."

Ness faltered. He got the feeling she was assuring herself as much as him.

"Doesn't the idea of not knowing where we're about to go scare you at all? We're travelling across space and time!"

"Yeah, but can't you teleport? Is that not the same thing?"

Ness gibbered for a brief moment, lost for words. Paula laughed.

"But, how much have you known, really, about this whole journey?" Paula continued. The grip she held on his hand relaxed, ever so slightly. "How much did you know about anything before this all happened to you?"

He shrugged. Paula pulled the blanket up.

"Here's what I'm trying to say. Take it with a pinch of salt, if you will, but, I think if you can do something about the future, do it. But if you can't, why worry?"

"There's just so much that can go wrong. I shouldn't have brought any of you with me. It could've just been my problem."

An incredulous look sparked in Paula's eyes.

"And left me in that cabin? And left Jeff with a single friend to defend and basically no family? And left Poo with the weight of a city on his shoulders before he's even allowed to get a driver's license?"

"Would've been better than the possibility of death. It's pretty much going to be 100% by tomorrow."

"Today, you mean."

Ness groaned. Paula chuckled.

"Nothing in the world is ever 100%," she said. "Okay, sure; we all die someday. But you don't really know when, or where, or how, do you?"

She prodded their entwined hands with a finger. "I'm not going to sugar-coat it; there's a chance. But there's also a chance of us surviving."

Ness looked at Paula, taking the words in slowly. And in admiring the precise auburn shade of her eyes, the golden luster of her curls, the way her fingers laced around his, the puzzle pieces came together and the hours inevitable in their approach seemed light-years away. For once, he appreciated not knowing. Not knowing what was coming, what was going to happen and what wasn't. It was okay not knowing, if there was nothing to know.

There was something blissfully liberating in the darkness laid out in front of him.

"Ness?" Paula whispered. "Are you okay?"

He smiled. Casting his gaze outward, towards the expanse of the valley, he nodded.

"Yeah."

The silence pervaded, and they stayed like so for a moment, hands intertwined. Ness felt the tension in the air. Quietly confident, his heart thudding in his throat, Ness turned to face Paula.

"And what about us?"

He watched her absentmindedly grasp a bundle of the blanket with her free hand.

"Hopefully, we all stay friends." Her tone was casual, but Ness could hear the slight waver trailing the end each word. "It's going to be difficult, with Jeff so far up north, and Poo in the clouds…"

Ness gave way to a small smile, but the seriousness bit at the corners of his mouth.

"I think you know what I mean."

She took a breath. "I'm not sure if we should talk about this now."

She slid her hand away from his. The cold breeze bit against Ness's fingers in the absence of her warmth.

"You said it yourself," he spoke. Tactfully, he chose not to look at her. "There's nothing we can be sure of, unless we can do something about it."

She looked distraught. Ness hated making her feel this way, but there was no more room for beating around the bush. It felt like something primal beating furiously inside him, fighting desperately to escape. It was now or never.

"I don't want anything to be left unsaid. Especially not between us."

For a moment, he considered letting his emotions run free. His words, carefully rehearsed but hopelessly naïve, would tumble out. He'd go to great lengths to explain the way just being around her made his heart pirouette. He'd tell her how much his chest hurt every time he wasn't able to protect her. He'd put his hands on each of her cheeks, soaking up the only reason he could get up some mornings, the only reason he'd even gotten this far.

The anxiety drained out of Ness. Invigorated, he turned to face her. His face was surely filled with a soppy expression he normally would've suppressed.

He didn't care.

"Paula, I – "

"No!" Paula yelped, suddenly animated. Ness stopped himself, eyes on the patchwork blanket, ice-cold regret spread to his extremities.

"I need to – please – let me talk first."

He looked up at her. Paula's eyes sparkled with tears.

"Oh, please don't look at me when I say this."

Feeling slightly bemused, he looked down.

"Okay. This makes it a little easier." She sniffled and laughed; a small gurgle.

"There were a few boys in Twoson who liked me. Maybe it was because I was 'special' or 'smart' or something, I don't know. I'd been on a few dates, but mostly they'd just take me to the theater or the department store."

"But they were dates, weren't they?" Ness reasoned softly. "They had to be special in some way."

"Sure, but I'd already been to the store a million times. I'd seen the same Runaway Five show a million times. Going with another person, even if they were a boy, didn't make it special. They never tried, and most of the time they just ended up being mean. They didn't really care about me. So, I stopped going, after a while.

But there was always a part of me that still wanted to be with a boy. Some stupid, hopeless-romantic side of me that wanted to experience what it was like to be with someone that saw me first in a crowded room. The kind of person that lived for me as much as they did themselves. So, I kept on believing, and it just kept hurting."

She seemed physically strained. And perhaps that wasn't far from the truth. It was the kind of emotional pain that weighed down on you for so long, that you weren't even angry or sad anymore. Just tired.

Ness cupped his wrist in his hand, chewing over his words.

"Not to sound too arrogant, but I'd like to think that I'm a little more interesting than some of the guys you've been out with."

He could hear the smile in her voice.

"You are. You're so wonderful, and so brave, and I couldn't have asked for anyone else. I wouldn't trade our time together for anything else in the world, even if it does mean almost dying every other day."

Ness cleared his throat, a mixture of embarrassment, gratification and another feeling of inexplicable warmth he was still trying to decipher welling up in his chest.

"So, what's wrong?"

The constriction crept back into her voice. "I know there's nothing I can do about what might happen tomorrow. There was nothing I could've done about this entire journey. I'm not saying it wasn't great, but I can't act like everything's been okay the whole time."

Ness felt his heart jolt again. He wanted so badly to look at her.

"I think ever since you got me out of Happy Happy Village, there was always something. Since then you've done so much more for me, but, I just…"

His voice was as soft as hers. "Yeah?"

"I just can't think that far ahead. There's too much going on right now that I'm just so worried that I'll lose you. Every single day we seem to get better and better at just barely avoiding getting killed. I don't think I'd be able to handle it if something happened to you. If you really want us – you and me – to go there, I don't know…"

Paula fell silent again.

"Can I please look at you now? This is getting tiring."

He caught her slow nod out of his peripheral and met her gaze. All nervousness flooding out of him, Ness carefully arranged the inside of his palm with her face, fitting his fingers around the soft skin of her cheek.

She remained stationary, perhaps transfixed by the deepness in his stare. Cautiously, he angled his head so that his temple just glanced off hers. Still, she chose not to recede.

"I know," he said, eyes closed. "I know how hard this must be. All of those things you said – smart, special – you are them, and so much more. Honestly, even including my mom, you're my favorite person in the world."

A bubbly laugh. He took that as a good sign.

"I can't afford to hold back anymore. I don't want to scare you, with what I might say, but I know it's something that shouldn't be stopped even by the fate of the universe. Even if we don't make it through tomorrow, I don't want to have to go without things between us like this."

As he opened his eyes, Paula took a breath and exhaled. The rush of air cooled his palm. He brushed back a stray hair behind her ear. Ness felt the slightest movement underneath his hand, and watched her mouth curl into a tiny grin. The same smile she gave him when she poked him awake every morning.

"You touch my face once, and I swear…"

Ness brushed the tears away from her cheeks. She giggled.

"What can I say? I know my way around a cheek. How about it?"

Her voice trembled with an excited, nervous energy. "Okay."

It was strange, really, how a single word could hold such tremendous energy. In the span of a few seconds, Ness felt the thousands of emotions in his chest bloom and erupt, a shower of fireworks from within.

He did the only thing he could think of, finally fitting his face with hers. Even in the brevity of the kiss, he could feel the softness of her lips and the ease with which she placed her fingers underneath his chin.

They pulled apart, his grin felt too big for his face. "'Okay'? That's it?"

She shoved him, playfully, then fell into his arms.

"I'll do better next time."

"Sure," Ness said. His mouth still felt oddly jumpy.

"This is really going against my philosophy here," Paula said in mock distaste. "I don't really plan for the future very much."

"So, there's a future? Like, future-future?"

Shoving him playfully, she giggled again, flashing a smile that exposed all her teeth.

"Without a doubt."

They stared, drinking deeply in the sight of each other up close.

"So, what now?"

Paula didn't respond right away. Instead, she extended her arm, pushing them both back against the surface of the roof.

"Just stay here with me. We've got most of the night left to go, and I want to pretend it won't end."

Something in him gave way as Ness filled his vision with the depths of her eyes. Without much hesitation, he stretched out his body and pulled her into him. With her in the crook of his arm, a great feeling of satisfaction swept over him. Ness's mind was awash in a peculiar sensation of absolute purity, unaware of anything other than the girl in front of him.

And as her breathing slowly deepened and she closed her eyes, Ness felt alive in the most subdued manner. There would always be an element of unpredictability in everything that was to come. Everything he encountered just solidified how much he couldn't see.

But as he dipped his head low, his lips grazing Paula's forehead, his heart rate slowed. Ness looked over the contours of her face, carving those familiar shapes into the forefront of his mind. He thought of nothing except the heat of their embrace, the rhythm of each breath, the curious way her hair tickled his nose. He held her tighter. Under the gentle glow of the moonlight, their figures converged, an intricate network of continuous, overarching lines.


End file.
